


Conversations between Best Friends

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode: s04e12 Guns Not Butter, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-13
Updated: 2006-03-13
Packaged: 2019-05-15 20:51:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14797752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: "My blessing?  He is your boss, CJ.  He is White House Chief of Staff,maybe old enough to be your father, and has demons on his shoulders like a cheap suit jacket.  What the hell are you thinking?"





	Conversations between Best Friends

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Conversations between Best Friends**

**by:** Gillian 

**Character(s):** Leo McGarry, CJ Cregg, Jed Bartlet, Toby Ziegler  
**Pairing(s):** Leo/CJ  
**Category(s):** Romance, Post-Episode   
**Rating:** MATURE  
**Summary:** "My blessing? He is your boss, CJ. He is White House Chief of Staff, maybe old enough to be your father, and has demons on his shoulders like a cheap suit jacket. What the hell are you thinking?"  
**Spoiler:** 4-12 Guns Not Butter  
**Written:** 2006-02-16  
**Author's Note:** Fourth in the **Push** series. Again, my heartfelt gratitude to Montiese for the beta reading and cheerleading. Your fruit basket is on its way. 

Between the President's speaking engagements that he was required to attend, supporting Josh and Toby in their attempts to pass the foreign ops bill and that damn goat Abbey had talked CJ into; Leo was ready for this day to be over. Unfortunately, it was only ten o'clock in the morning. The only thing that would make this day better was seeing CJ for a little while, but he had to pretend to be mad at her about the Heifer International photo op. He couldn't believe that the President actually paid him to be angry with his significant other. At lunchtime, he decided to screw it and walked over to CJ's office. Carol wasn't at her desk, so he approached the closed door unannounced. 

CJ looked up when he knocked and a relieved smile passed over her face. "Thank God. I was afraid you were Josh, or even worse, Toby." 

He gave her his patented 'tell me before I have to ask' look. 

"I've been hiding in here most of the day." She motioned to the closed blinds. "Josh and Toby are on separate but equally bad rampages. I refuse to let them ruin my day." 

Leo smiled and came around to her side of the desk, leaning against it. He lowered his head and softly kissed her lips. 

Pulling away, she asked, "Have you eaten?" 

"No, you wanna grab a bite?" 

"Outside the office?!" 

He shrugged. "Why not? You and Toby go out to lunch. You and Josh go out to lunch. You and Donna go out to lunch. I'm not going anywhere, CJ. Let me take you out to lunch." 

She kissed him, then, thankful she'd closed the blinds earlier. Running her fingers through his hair, she stood to press her body fully against his. He wrapped his arms around her, shifting them so he could sit in her chair and pulled her into his lap. His erection pressed against her thigh. 

"Or we could skip lunch all together," she whispered in his ear while loosening his tie. 

"CJ..." he protested weakly. 

"Shh..." she murmured. "Relax." Climbing off his lap, she turned the chair, kneeling before it. The press secretary deliberately pulled his shirt tails from his trousers and unzipped the fly. 

He moaned, simply anticipating the contact. She grinned at his eagerness and flicked her tongue across his tip. 

"Oh God, CJ..." 

Taking him fully in her mouth, she performed the most exquisitely perfect blow job. He was seconds away from exploding into her throat when the door to her office flew open and the Communications Director bellowed her name. 

Leo's eyes popped open and he found himself face to face with Toby. CJ was torn. Obviously, they'd been caught in a compromising position. If she moved now to face Toby, she'd be leaving Leo exposed. If she didn't face Toby this instant, the situation had the potential to get out of hand. After all, Toby was in the wrong this time. If he had knocked, none of them would be in this extremely awkward position. Sighing through her nose, she released Leo with a satisfying pop. She made a mental note of his ability to remain hard under adverse circumstances and filed it away for future use. 

Toby remained standing in the exact spot where he had stopped, his mouth slightly agape and his brain unable to process this new and very foreign information. 

Leo finally recovered enough wits to zip up his pants as CJ stood from the floor, smoothing imaginary wrinkles in her suit. 

Leo was the first to speak. "Close your mouth, Toby." 

Toby did as he was told and tilted his head to the door. "I'm gonna..." 

"No you don't," CJ snapped. "What did you need that you were in such a hurry that you could not be bothered to knock on my door?" 

Toby examined his shoes. "Nothing really. I'm going back to my office now." He left the room, closing the door behind him. 

"Well, I guess we don't have to worry about telling Toby," Leo said in as light a manner as he could muster after getting caught with his dick hanging out of his pants. 

"This is not funny, Leo!" 

He took her hands and pulled her back into his lap. "No, it's not, but what's done is done. Do you want to go talk to him or should I?" 

She sighed and covered her face with her hands. "I'll go." 

********** 

CJ found Toby in his office fifteen minutes later. Knocking on his door, she said, "Can I come in?" 

He nodded his assent, but didn't look her in the eye. 

"So..." she said, sitting on his couch. "That was unexpected." 

"Unexpected? Unexpected?! Try unequivocally stupid and monumentally insane! You're sleeping with our boss, CJ? You were..." he paused, finding he couldn't bring himself to say what his best friend had been doing to the Chief of Staff just minutes earlier. "And as I proved, anyone could have walked in. Danny Concannon, CJ, Mark, Chris, Steve, Katie. Any one of them could have waltzed in. Hell, the President could have found you on your knees. Oh God, does he know?" 

CJ glanced at her watch and decided to let Toby rant for five more minutes, but not a second past then. 

"...and I've gotta tell you, CJ, this is a PR nightmare. How long has this been going on? Please tell me you were not sleeping with him while he was still married. Who else knows? This is why he was at the Thanksgiving thing." Toby's eyes widened slightly as the wheels turned in his head. 

CJ saw the bits of information click together. 

"He's in love with you." It was a statement, not a question, and Toby realized the gravity of the situation. 

CJ motioned for him to stop. "It's my life, Toby, mine and Leo's. You cannot dictate how I live it. We've carefully considered... No, this is crazy. I'm not going to defend myself to you." 

"He's in love with you," Toby repeated. 

"What?" 

"After Thanksgiving... Truth or dare... He said he was in love with someone, and he wouldn't tell us who it was," he explained. 

CJ's lips curled up into a small smile at the memory of that day. 

Toby stared at her, remembering a day when he could make her smile like that. It didn't seem so long ago. 

"You don't have to agree with my decisions, but you are my best friend and I'd like your blessing." 

"My blessing? He is your boss, CJ. He is White House Chief of Staff, maybe old enough to be your father, and has demons on his shoulders like a cheap suit jacket. What the hell are you thinking?" 

"There is nothing about Leo that you could ever tell me that I don't know," she said. "We don't get to pick and choose who we truly love... If we did I would pick him anyway." 

"You can't be serious!" Toby's voice went up another octave and his skin turned another shade of purple. "He's not... He's not...!" 

"Dammit Toby, he's not you! Is that what you're struggling to say? Our compromising position was really dumb, and everything you said about someone walking in was right. Though most people have the courtesy to knock. But don't pretend you don't remember what the first giddy months are like in a fantastic new relationship." 

"How did this happen? When? You weren't... Please tell me he wasn't still with Jenny?" 

"You know me better than that," CJ replied in a dark tone. "I promise to tell you all about it someday. I can tell you right now, this is not a fling and it is not going away. I'm not letting go of him because some people may not like it. That includes you." 

Toby sighed. "Does he treat you well?" 

She nodded. 

"Are you happy?" 

She nodded again. 

"And you're in love with him?" 

CJ grinned, against her better judgment. "Yeah, I am." 

Toby crossed the room and sat next to her on the couch. "Then you have my blessing, for what it's worth. But if he hurts you..." 

Laughing, CJ said, "Don't worry, Graham already gave him the big brother speech." 

"Graham knows about you two?" Toby looked hurt. 

"Yes, though I denied it. I took Leo to Thanksgiving dinner and Graham assumed that we were together. We actually weren't at the time. But Graham went ahead and threatened the White House Chief of Staff anyway. He was fortunate Leo's agents were not with us." CJ took Toby's hands in hers. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. We wanted to keep it quiet until we were sure and you've been busy with Andi and the Inauguration." 

"I will _always_ have time for you. Do you understand me?" 

CJ nodded. 

"Now get out of my office." Toby waved her away. "I have work to do." 

********** 

CJ found Leo in his office after her talk with Toby. 

"How'd it go?" Leo asked as he took off his glasses. 

"I gave him ten minutes to rant and then he gave me his blessing." 

"Just like that? No sulking or pouting for days while the rest of the staff tries to avoid him?" 

CJ smiled at Leo's usually accurate characterization of the Communications Director. "I think he's got too much on his plate right now to care about our love life. Ask again on January 21st. He might care a lot then." 

Leo laughed at her response. 

"So what’s next?" she asked. 

"Well, your best friend knows, so I suppose I should tell mine," he said. "I'll go up to the residence tonight." 

"You'll come by my apartment when you're done?" 

"Yeah. Listen, I'm sorry we didn't go out to lunch. We'll go tomorrow, okay?" 

"I'll block some time." 

********** 

After finishing a relatively slow day in the West Wing, Leo took the elevator up to the second floor residence. His watch read 8:05 and according to Nancy, the President retired to his private study thirty minutes ago. Knocking on the door, Leo let himself into the study. 

"Leo!" Bartlet bellowed. "Please tell me there is not an international incident to distract me from this Notre Dame game." 

"No, sir," Leo smiled. "I thought since Abbey's in Manchester we could catch up a little bit." 

The President nodded. "Sit, sit. Would you like something to eat?" 

"No, thank you. Actually, sir, I don't have a lot of time. There's a situation that might warrant some media attention if the press corps were to get a hold of it." 

"Is everything alright?" 

"Yes, sir. I've been seeing someone recently..." 

"Yeah, Jordan Kendall," the President said knowingly. 

"No, sir..." Leo shifted uncomfortably. 

"Well then who? Why would it attract media attention?" 

"Well, I've been seeing someone that works at the White House. And seeing as she works for me, it could be construed by conservatives as sexual harassment, or for her, appear as though she slept her way into her position, which I assure you she did not." 

"Leo, I don't think you've done anything inappropriate. Just tell me who it is." 

"CJ." Leo thought he might be able to knock the leader of the free world over with a feather. "Sir..." 

"My press secretary, Claudia Jean Cregg, that CJ?" 

"Yeah." 

The President sighed. "Well, this is unexpected. I mean, she's beautiful, brilliant, and talented, and you’re just an old guy." 

"Thanks for that," Leo smirked. "We went out for breakfast after the election." 

"Now I know that Jordan was here that night." 

"She was," Leo admitted, "but she left shortly after the thing in Venezuela. I spent some time with Josh, Toby and CJ discussing Sam's chances in the 47th. Toby took a fairly wasted Josh home and Sam had to talk to the widow. CJ took me to a dive down the street." 

"And you've been dating her since we won reelection?" 

"I wouldn't say dating, exactly. We're in a relationship..." 

Bartlet waved his hand. "Whatever. You've been relating with CJ for three months and you're just now telling me? Who else knows?" 

"Toby and Donna Moss." 

"Oh God, Zeigler probably went through the roof," the President laughed. 

Leo blushed. "His initial reaction was tempered by the manner in which he found out." 

"I think the less I know about that the better." 

"Yes, sir." 

"Is she waiting for you at home?" 

"Yeah." 

"Go," the President dismissed him. "We'll talk about this later. And you might get an earful from Abbey for not telling us sooner." 

"Yes, sir. Thank you. Have a good evening." 

"You, too. Give CJ my love." 

********** 

Leo used his key to let himself into CJ's apartment a little after nine o'clock. He put his keys and wallet on the table by the door and shrugged out of his suit coat. He heard music down the hall, so he headed in that direction, loosening his tie. "CJ?" 

Pushing open the door to the bedroom, he noticed light under the door to the bathroom. She was singing along with Pat Benatar. 

"CJ?" he repeated louder. 

"Come on in." 

He walked into the bathroom and smiled. Almost two months together, and this was the first time he'd seen her in the bath. "You have no idea how many fantasies I've had involving you and a tub." 

"Before or after Thanksgiving?" She lifted her leg out of the bubbles, draping it over the side of the tub. 

His eyes practically bugged out of his head at the sight of her long, bare, wet leg hanging out. "Both. It was a favorite of mine in the shower after a long day." 

"Was?" she raised a single eyebrow. 

"Well, now I have the real thing. And that's so much better." 

She grinned. "Why are you still standing all the way over there?" 

"I honestly have no idea." He removed his shoes and socks and shed his shirt and pants. Sauntering over to her, he tried to memorize the details of this moment to relive in the future when work took them away from each other. She pushed his boxers down and pulled him into the tub with her. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, he sank into the warm water. 

"How did it go with the President?" she asked. 

"Fine. He was surprised, but not horrified. He doesn't know what you see in me. He's probably worried about you with my track record. I'm amazed he didn't threaten me with the 82nd airborne." 

"I'm a big girl," she laughed. "I made the right decision. Now let's see what we can do about fulfilling that fantasy of yours." 

"By the way, eventually we should discuss some kind of decorum for office hours," Leo said. 

"Yeah, or maybe we should just get a lock for my door." 


End file.
